For at least three decades now religion has been re-entering the public sphere and politics in Europe and globally. Its re-emergence, however, bears little resemblance to the past when the religion-state coupling was unequivocal.

This event, hosted by European External Action Service, marked the launching of a Joint Policy Study “Cooperation with Religious Institutions as a European Policy Tool”, edited by the EuroMeSCo network and coordinated by Patrycja Sasnal, head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at PISM – Polish Institute of International Affairs.

The Joint Policy Study takes an institutionalist view of state-religion relations, although religious institutions are defined in a broad sense and encompass both official and unofficial religion. The chapters in the study provide both more generalised overviews and case studies to cover all levels of state-religion relations in Europe and MENA: (1) relations between state and religious institutions in Europe ; (2) relations between state and religious institutions in the Maghreb; (3) relations between institutions of different religions (the Vatican and al-Azhar); and (4) the role of Muslim religious institutions in advancing a state policy in an EU member state.